


Stab Deterrent

by littlelovelyspiderling



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Irondad, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Platonic Relationships, Precious Peter Parker, Protective Tony Stark, Serious Injuries, Spider-Man: Far From Home (Movie), Spider-Man: Homecoming (Movie), Tickling, Ticklish Peter Parker, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, got the idea from clint in age of ultron, pete gets hurt and Helen's healy machine tickles him the end, spiderson, ticklish!peter, tony stark to the rescue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:55:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25243495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlelovelyspiderling/pseuds/littlelovelyspiderling
Summary: Peter gets stabbed and requires the assistance of Dr. Cho and her cell regenerating device to heal. What follows makes Peter never want to get stabbed ever again.
Relationships: Peter Parker & Avengers Team, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 9
Kudos: 158





	Stab Deterrent

Peter got hurt pretty often, what with being a superhero and all. High hospital bills and painful wounds were an occupational hazard that simply came with the job. But this evening—this injury—was different.

Tony had been dicing tomatoes in his kitchen when he got the ping from FRIDAY—an alert triggered by the vitals monitor in Peter’s suit. It was the kind of thing he’d come up with and installed but hoped would never be required. But Peter, being _Peter_ , meant the utilization of the sensor far more often than to Stark’s liking.

“What did he do this time, FRIDAY?” Stark sighed, twirling the knife through the air. “Swallow a bomb? Pound seven Monster energy drinks in under a minute?”

_“Peter Parker has been stabbed in the abdomen,”_ FRIDAY replied. _“He’s losing blood fast and needs immediate medical attention.”_

The knife dropped from Tony’s hand and clattered against the granite countertop, his playful attitude disintegrating. He was suited up in seconds, heart hammering in his ears, a line of sweat breaking along his brow. “W-where is he? How fast can I get to him?”

_“Creating a flight path now.”_

* * *

He was barely conscious when Stark arrived. He’d been gutted by some psycho, who was stuck to the wall in front of Peter beneath a large glob of webbing, the bloody dagger still gripped in his fist. Tony dropped to the asphalt and rushed to Spider-Man’s aid, lifting his head up with a hand under his chin. “Kid? Kid, are you okay? It’s Tony. Can you hear me?”

The eye lenses on his mask fluttered open sluggishly. It took a moment for his vision to focus on the terrified face in front of him. The world spun and his side ached. His voice came out weak and coarse, like he’d been gargling gravel. “Mis’r Stark…?” he murmured, whimpering quietly and gripping his wound tighter. From the ribcage down, Peter’s suit was soaked in blood.

“I got you,” Tony assured him, breathless with fear, sliding one arm under his knees and another around his back. “You’re gonna be fine, okay?”

Peter simply groaned in response. Once the kid was tucked safely against his chest, Stark blasted off the ground and soared above the skyline.

Tony had alerted Dr. Cho to prepare her tissue-building device for an emergency procedure. By the time Iron Man was standing outside of her office with the injured kid in tow, the machine was ready for him. The doctor and her team carted him away, and Stark was forced to wait in the lobby.

It was two hours before he got any news. Two hours of pacing, worrying, biting his nails. When the doors finally creaked open, Tony flew to his feet.

“Is everything okay? What happened? How is he?”

The young nurse smiled fondly upon the concerned billionaire, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Everything is fine, Mr. Stark. The boy was given a blood transfusion and fluids, and he is in the final stages of the tissue repairing operation. His insides are fully healed; all that’s left is the epidermis.”

Tony allowed himself to breathe for the first time in what felt like days. He laid a hand over his chest and bowed his head. “Oh, thank _God._ I thought…I was so afraid that…” He combed his fingers through his hair, puffing out his cheeks. “Thank you. All of you.”

“Of course,” the nurse said cheerfully. Then he wrinkled his nose. “Although, I have to tell you: we are having a bit of trouble completing these last layers of operation.”

Stark clenched his jaw. “Why? What’s wrong?”

“There’s no need to be alarmed,” the nurse insisted. “Peter is fine, I promise you. The only problem is that Mr. Parker is awake now, and we can’t seem to get him to stay still enough for the device to heal his skin correctly.”

Tony’s terror transformed into confusion. “What, is it hurting him or something?”

The nurse shrugged. “He won’t say. But the operation is supposed to be painless. A soft tingling sensation is the only thing patients have reported feeling.” He nodded at the door. “We were actually hoping you might come back here and help us try to keep him still.”

Tony blinked. Why wasn’t the kid cooperating? He was normally so eager to please, and he’d never been a problematic patient in the past. “Uh, sure,” he said eventually. “I’d definitely like to see him.”

The nurse smiled and led him down the hall. Two left turns later, and they were in the operating room.

Three people in blue scrubs occupied the small space. One was typing something into a desktop computer, the other was looking through a clipboard full of papers, and the third was messing with the short arm that hung above the table in the center. The table that Peter was laid out on, wearing nothing but a pair of boxers and looking a little red in the face.

“Peter?” Tony called, hurrying to his side. The kid glanced up at him sharply, and he swore the red darkened a little.

“Oh, Mr. Stark!” he greeted him. He sat upright, clearing his throat. “Um, hi.”

“Hey,” he sighed, patting his shoulder. “You gave us all a real scare there, kiddo. Probably shaved a few of my waning years off.” He gave his arm a small squeeze. “You feeling better?”

“Yeah,” he chuckled shyly. “Sorry. It was a stupid mistake, I promise. Won’t let it happen again.” He lifted his gaze. “Thank you—you know, for helping. ”

Stark’s eyes wandered down to the kid’s torso, where the only remnant left of the stab wound was a small patch of bright pink flesh. It looked like someone had branded a perfect rectangle into his belly.

“The nurse said you’re not staying still for the last leg of the procedure,” Tony said, noticing the immediate shift in Peter’s expression. “You want to tell me what that’s about? He said this wasn’t supposed to hurt.”

Peter turned away from him and rolled his shoulders uncomfortably. “No, it’s not…not that,” he stammered. “It’s fine, Mr. Stark. I'll, um, be still.”

“What is it, then?” he prodded. “You have to tell the doctor what’s going on, Pete. If it really does hurt, then—”

“It’s _nothing,_ ” he insisted, looking anywhere but him. “I just—I’ll come find you once I’m done, okay?”

Stark narrowed his eyes at the kid. Why was he being so dodgy about this? He was acting like he was guilty or embarrassed about something. “Yeah, no,” he finally said, crossing his arms against his chest. “I think I’ll stay until the procedure is finished, just to make sure this ‘nothing’ really is _nothing.”_

Dread washed over the kid’s face as Stark turned on his heels. “Doc?” he called. “Kid says he’ll stay still. If you’re ready, feel free to fire it up again.”

Dr. Cho eyed him skeptically but gave her coworker a nod. With a click, the machine hummed to life, and the young nurse pushed on Peter’s chest. Reluctantly, the kid laid back down, drumming his fingers against the table, chewing on his lip.

“Sequence beginning in three, two, one,” the operator counted off. After _one_ , a small beam of light fired from the tip of the arm, and it began to trace over Peter’s wound.

For the first few seconds, Peter did as he was told—he lied there, unmoving, letting the device work its magic. No sweat. Stark started to wonder if Peter and the staff had banded together to pull some kind of weird prank on him. But then, as the beam passed over his torso a third time, the kid stiffened. His hands curled into fists against the bed and his feet began to twitch. Tony looked down at Peter’s face and saw that his eyes were scrunched shut and his lips were pursed together tautly.

“Peter?” Stark said. “Kid, is it hurting you?”

He shook his head briskly, his ears flushing pink. The kid’s eyes flew open suddenly and he slapped a hand over his mouth. A muffled whimpering sound slipped between his fingers as his twitching turned into squirms. 

“Doesn’t look very still to me,” Dr. Cho said dryly. She signaled for the nurse to shut it off, but Tony raised his hand.

“Wait,” he said, turning on the kid with a frown. “Peter, stop trying to act tough. We’re not turning it off until you tell us what’s going on.”

Peter threw his other hand over his bright pink face. “Ihi’m s-sohorry,” he whined, his voice much shriller than normal. “I’m—I cahan’t—ahaheehee!”

Stark narrowed his eyes and stepped closer to the squirmy teenager. “Wait,” he said bemusedly, spotting the wide smile peeking out between the kid’s fingers. “Are you…laughing?”

A few seconds later, Peter balled his hands into fists and dropped them against the table, his crumbling front finally giving way to a flood of giggles. “Crahahap!” he squealed, arching his spine, blushing as bright as a tomato. “Ihit—it r-reheally—it _tihickles_ , eheehee!”

Staring down at the giggling superhero, Tony’s frown slowly melted into an amused and puzzled smile. “It tickles?” he repeated, glancing over at the doctor in search of an answer. Dr. Cho placed a hand on her hip.

“Huh. I’ve never heard that before.”

Peter covered his face again and scrunched up his toes, high-pitched laughter pouring from his lips. “Pleehease—oho gohod!” When he couldn’t bear it a second longer, he rolled on to his side and curled into a ball, desperate to relieve his tummy of the fiendish tickling sensation. The device operator quickly shut the beam off, leaving the kid panting and flushed, struggling to catch his breath.

“Well that was…surprising,” Stark chuckled. Of all the suspected causes Tony had thought responsible for the kid’s uncooperativeness, this certainly hadn’t been one of them. _How funny,_ he thought. He couldn’t help but smile as he looked at poor, giggly Peter, who was hugging himself around the middle and panting. He was almost too damn cute for words.

“I’m sohorry…” Peter giggled breathlessly, his belly tingling against his fingers. “Just…gimme a sec…” 

“No one has ever told me it tickled them before,” Dr. Cho said curiously, joining Tony at Peter’s bedside. “At least, not to this extent. Is Mr. Parker known to be a particularly sensitive person?”

Tony shrugged, unable to wipe the endearing grin from his face. “I mean, no. Not to me, anyway.” He’d never attempted to tickle Peter before, and he’d certainly never witnessed anyone else try it either. It wasn’t exactly something that came up naturally between a mentor and their mentee working in a lab and beating up bad guys together. He made a note to amend that mistake soon after this—and from the uneasy anticipation in the kid’s expression, he guessed Peter was aware of his plans.

Stark gave his shoulder a nudge, making Peter start a little. “What do you think? Would you consider yourself a super ticklish person, Peter? Like, compared to normal people?”

Peter sat up slowly with an arm still glued to his torso, the pink tint in his cheeks beginning to creep down his neck. “Uh, heh, I don’t…I don’t think so.” He gave a nervous laugh—strained and quiet and very easy to distinguish from his authentic one—and scratched the back of his head. “But, um, you know what? It’s fine. I don’t need any more healing laser beam treatments. If it’s just that little bit of skin left, my body can take care of the rest of it, no problem.” Moving briskly, he scooted to the edge of the bed and swung his legs off the side. “So, uh, we good here?”

Dr. Cho stepped in front of him to stop him from hopping to the floor. “Hold on, Peter. Your wound is still in danger of hemorrhage and infection. I can’t release you until the procedure is fully complete.”

Peter looked to Stark with pleading eyes, like he expected the billionaire to rescue him from this hilarious predicament. Tony snorted. “You heard the doc,” he said, poking Peter just below his ribs. Peter jumped and squealed in the most cute and clumsy way, making Tony’s evil grin widen. “Wow. You are really ticklish, huh?”

“Stohop it!” Peter squeaked, looking betrayed. His anger was quickly drowned in laughter as Tony started to poke him all over, alternating between both hands, his index fingers tasering the kid’s bare sides, belly, and ribcage wherever they weren’t being guarded by his arms, throwing in the occasional squeeze or flutter when it seemed appropriate. Within seconds, he was curled back into a tiny ball, kicking and jerking and laughing hysterically, reduced to a helpless, giggling mess.

“This is ridiculous,” Stark laughed. “You’re a superhero. I’ve watched you fight off an army of alien monsters with ease. Now you’re telling me all it takes to defeat you is a few pokes to the tummy?”

Peter grappled with his mentor’s hands while flailing all over the table. “Mr. Starhark! Wahait! Ahahack! Nohoho!”

“All right, that’s enough,” Dr. Cho interceded, fighting back a smile. The rest of her team hid their endearment far less gracefully. “We need to complete the procedure as soon as possible. And Mr. Parker _will_ have to be still for it.”

“At this rate, I think you ought to just knock him out,” Stark chuckled. Clambering to recompose himself, Peter sat back up again, skittish and pink.

“He’s been under for many hours now. I’d really prefer not to sedate him again, especially since the remainder of the operation should only take about five minutes.”

The doc had a point. Peter really didn’t need any more drugs in his system. Tony smiled at the flustered teenager with a mix of pity and delight. “Well, what do you say, kiddo? You think you can stay still for five more minutes so the doctors can finish fixing you up?”

Peter was clearly still recovering from Tony Stark’s poke attack, but he did his best to look unabashed. His eyes flickered between all the gazes trained on his half-naked, blushing self, and he hunched his shoulders up to his ears. “I…uh…w-well…” he stammered softly. Stark couldn’t stop himself from snorting.

“Perhaps we could restrain him?” the nurse from earlier suggested suddenly. “Just until the procedure is finished. That way, there’d be no risk of him moving and messing up the pattern.”

Tony watched Peter’s eyes bug out of his head. “W-what? _Restrain_ me?”

“Good idea,” Dr. Cho said, rounding the table to stand behind Peter’s head. “We need to do this quick. Peter, lie back with your arms above your head.”

Again, Peter looked to Tony. As much as Stark would love to save the kid from this adorably embarrassing scenario, they really needed to get his wound fixed. He patted his arm.

“Let’s just get this over with. The faster we start, the faster it’s done.”

Peter groaned as Tony helped him lie down, his ears burning. “I hate thihis,” he whined, nervous giggles already punctuating his words.

Using heavy-duty clasps that Stark provided, the doctors began securing him to the table. Tony did his best to comfort the kid as they did. “I’ll stay with you until it’s over, okay?”

“ _Noho_ ,” Peter snapped shyly. “You’re just gohonna make fun of me.”

Tony tried not to smile, but simply couldn’t help himself. “I promise I won’t. At least, not until after.”

Peter pouted and blushed as his ankles and wrists were shackled to the table. Using thick bands, they also tied his torso down so that he couldn’t buck his hips or arch his back and wind up disrupting the device’s precise cell mapping again. The feeling of complete immobility was not in any way to Peter’s liking.

Once he was secured, Cho gave the word to the operator. The man held his finger over the switch.

“Sequence beginning in three, two, one…”

A moment later, the beam clicked on, and the mechanical arm began to make passes over the kid’s wound. Tony laid his hand on Peter’s arm.

“You okay?” he asked carefully. Peter nodded with his eyes shut and his lips sucked against his teeth.

“Mmhmm, yeah. I’m fihine.” He puffed out his cheeks and scrunched up his nose. “Everything’s fine. Yep. Ihi’m great. Soho great. I can do thihis. I cahan doohoo this. Ihi cahahan—”

His eyes popped open suddenly and he tried to squirm. The futile attempt quickly reminded Peter of the fact that he couldn’t move an inch in any direction. He hadn’t been fully aware of just how well restrained he was until now, when the soft, feathery tickling sensation had reached an unbearable level of intensity, when it felt like six or seven hands were clawing delicately at his tummy, letting their nails glide against his skin with sadistically light movements. How did the machine imitate that feeling so perfectly, even though that wasn’t even something it was designed to do?

The tickling was too much for the helplessly sensitive teenager to take. But to his horror, he couldn’t move a muscle. He couldn’t make it _stop._

“Shihihit!” Peter squealed, the floodgates bursting open. “Nohoho I cahan’t!” He clenched his fists and threw his head back, giggling wildly, uncontrollably. “Mihister Starhark! Hehehelp!”

Tony laughed empathetically, moving his hand to the kid’s head and running his fingers through his curls. “You’re all right, giggle monster. Just let it out; it’ll be over soon.”

_Not soon enough!_ he thought. The feeling was spreading across his entire torso like a plague, inflicting more and more of him with the maddening sensation. The feathery touches and scritchy-scratching nails were multiplying by the second. Peter whipped his head from side to side.

“Nohohahaha! Pleehease! I cahan’t—I _cahahan’t!_ ”

“This is intriguing,” Dr. Cho said, watching the poor hero twitch and shriek uselessly. “I’ve never seen the procedure affect someone so dramatically.”

Tony petted Peter’s hair, fighting back against his own bout of giggles. The kid’s laughter was adorably contagious. “I’ve certainly never seen him like this. Maybe your machine is malfunctioning.”

Dr. Cho stared at Peter’s wound, watching the device work its magic on the damaged cells. “Well, it’s doing its job. Just a few more minutes, and it’ll be done. I’m sure he’ll be fine.”

“IHI’M DYHIHIHING!” Peter cried. Tears welled in his eyes and hiccups jumped from his throat. He couldn’t believe how much it tickled—like someone was blowing fifty raspberries into his tummy at once. Although he’d never admit it, there had been times in his life where he’d actually _enjoyed_ being tickled. Wrestling with Ben as a kid, affectionate pokes from May—sometimes it was the only way to cheer him up when he was in a really low spot. The people who knew him best knew this annoying well, and weren’t afraid to utilize it.

But _this?_ Tied down and tickled to tears, laughing like an idiot in front his biggest idol? This was just downright _evil._ All he could do was lie there and take it, the endless bombardment of tickling sensations dancing across his skin, driving him up the wall. He wanted to thrash and twist and guard his poor belly from the beam’s cruel path, but the only thing he could do was twitch his toes and squirm in place and laugh helplessly.

“Just try to think about something else,” Mr. Stark suggested. “Like, uh…what are you working on in school? Got any cool upgrade ideas for your suit? How’s your aunt?”

Peter barely even registered that he was speaking. He really wished he could hide his face behind his hands right now. He knew he was all red cheeks and giant, dumb smiles. “PLEEHEASE!” he begged, turning away from Mr. Stark as much as his restraints would allow. “NOHO MORHORE! NOHO _MORHORHORE!_ AHAHAHAHA!”

Suddenly, the beam flickered off. In an instant, the tickling sensation shrunk back to a tiny tingle. “All done!” the operator said cheerfully. “Now that wasn’t so bad, was it?”

Peter fell limp against the table, gasping for breath, dizzy with relief. He’d never laughed so long and hard in his entire life. Giggles still clung to his words. “Gah…aha…oho my…oho gohod…” He let his head loll to the side while Tony continued to card his fingers through his hair.

“That was probably the cutest thing I’ve ever seen,” Stark said matter-of-factly. “And I met an alpaca on Tuesday. A baby alpaca. Like, a real, live, baby alpaca. You know how tough that is to beat?”

“Shuhut up…” Peter groaned, smiling. Now that he wasn’t distracted by tickle-filled laser beams, he realized how nice it felt to have Tony petting his head. He didn’t do that kind of thing very often. It kinda made Peter feel like a puppy.

“All set,” Dr. Cho said, pressing lightly on the kid’s now fully-healed stomach. Her touch made Peter wince in surprise. “You’re good to go. Let’s get you out of these bonds.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Stark insisted. “You guys go on ahead. Grab yourselves a fancy lunch. My treat.”

The doctors all grinned at each other like kids in a candy store and hurried eagerly out of the lab with a wave of 'thank yous.' Stark shook each of their hands as they left, then returned to Peter’s side once they were alone.

“Here we go,” he said, undoing the straps around the kid’s midsection. Their absence made it a lot easier to breathe.

“Thanks,” he said, sucking in a large gulp of air. “That was… _horrible_.”

“I encourage you to remember this experience the next time you decide to put yourself in a potentially stabby situation,” Stark said with a smirk. “Good deterrent I’d say, yeah?”

_Yes, very much so,_ Peter thought. But he wouldn’t give Mr. Stark the satisfaction; he’d already had plenty. He knew his mentor was never going to let him live this day down.

“It is crazy how well that thing works,” Tony said nonchalantly. Then he reached out and poked the spot where Peter had been stabbed, making him jolt.

“H-hey!” he yelped. The straps were gone, but Peter’s ankles and wrists were still shackled to the table, so he was still very trapped and vulnerable.

Stark swirled his finger against the spot, smiling at the kid’s squeaky, hysterical response.“I mean, it looks like it was never even there, doesn’t it?”

“Dohon’t! Mr. Stark, dohon’t!” Peter had almost forgotten what it felt like to have an actual hand tickling him instead of a weird beam. Oddly enough, the hand seemed more effective at eliciting a quicker, wilder response. “Come ohon! Lehet me goho!”

“What? I’m just admiring how remarkable Dr. Cho’s invention is at doing its job,” Tony said innocently. “I can’t even tell where your wound was anymore. Do you remember? Was it…here?”

He tasered his side suddenly, making Peter leap.

“Or…here?”

He poked just below his bellybutton. Peter giggled helplessly.

“Mihister Starharhark!”

“Or maybe it was _here_.”

He made a claw with his hand and shook it against Peter’s entire tummy. Peter was a writhing, squealing puddle.

“Stohopstopstahahahap!”

“I know!” Tony exclaimed. “I bet the new skin feels _different_ from your old skin. More synthetic, maybe? Let’s see…”

Using both hands now, Stark started pinching and squeezing all over his sides, his ribcage, his belly, his hips, _everywhere._ His evil thumbs dug in deep and wiggled mercilessly into Peter’s skin, honing in on the spots that elicited the most reaction. Peter bucked and shrieked, but he couldn’t get away.

Tony let up quickly after that, recognizing when the kid had really had enough. He just couldn’t help himself—he loved hearing the kid laugh, seeing him look so happy, especially after almost losing him today. He was glad to have this knowledge in his back pocket, in case Peter was ever in a particularly grumpy mood in the future.

“Are you good?” Stark chuckled, helping the giggly teen to his feet. He stuffed the clasps in his pocket then ruffled his hair.

“Yohou’re _evil_ ,” he said, hugging his aching sides. “You’re gohonna...pay for this.”

“Are you _threatening_ me right now?” Stark scoffed, tweaking the kid’s ribs, making him fold into himself and squeal. “Bad idea. Especially now.”

Needless to say, Stark did not end up paying for it.


End file.
